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Part 5
.
.
Good
fortune smiled
an awful lot on Jerry
over the following months.
he got a couple of house-sitting gigs
taking care of pets
watering plants
collecting mail
and
just being a regular real life person
to fend off any potential intruders.
he also got to read a lot
which made him very happy.
when the gigs finished,
he networked
with other people he knew
who could put him up for a few days
here and there.
or
he broke down,
paid his money
and stayed at the Y.
.
when
he would get
dead-ass desperate,
he'd call me
and I'd let him sleep on the sofa,
but on a one night only basis.
or if I were to have the kind of company
that required some obvious privacy,
Jerry would take it upon himself
to just stay away.
usually during those periods
he'd more than often end up in his sleeping bag
hidden far-far away
within the abundant overgrowth
of the foothills
anywhere between Laurel Canyon
and Griffith Park.
.
but
as the inevitability
drew nearer and nearer,
Jerry finally broke down
and
got himself a job
parking cars for an upscale club
somewhere up on the Sunset Strip.
the manager of the lot
at first had trouble understanding
how a guy such as Jerry
could have so much enthusiasm
doing what was basically
a dumb gig.
after all,
everybody else working there
continually complained
about how little they made
from such a demeaning job.
but
not Jerry.
he showed up on time every day
clean and courteous and always happy
to do the chores no one else wanted to do.
and
no doubt
he was ever mindful
at calculating his next move.
.
several
more months passed
and I hadn't heard a single thing
from Jerry.
I admit that a slight belief in miracles
might have crossed my mind,
thinking that somehow he succeeded at
living for nothing,
which of course meant living far from me.
for that matter,
I would've been quite content
never seeing him again
had it not been
for one simple but agonizing question
looming hard on my mental horizon:
was I once again fooling myself
by thinking
I could beat irony at its own game?
.
around
7am the next morning
I got a phone call.
some nurse at LA County
asked me if I knew a certain so-and-so
named Jerry?
according to her,
he gave the hospital my name and number
and
evidently
for lack of a better candidate,
listed me as next to kin.
I remained frozen in bed
for at least another hour,
fixated on a great terror.
the same two words
just kept coming at me over and over
asking me NOW WHAT?
.
after
getting to
LA County General,
the medical staff informed me
that Jerry nearly lost most of his arm.
they went on telling me
that he severely mangled it
in some kind of machinery.
as it turned out
there was a huge mechanical billboard
next to the club where he parked cars.
right behind the billboard
was a small shed housing the machinery.
.
"hold on a minute!"
I blurted out
interrupting them.
"let me guess...
the shed had just enough space
to possibly sleep in,
but not enough to stretch out?"
.
the
nurse looked
at me rather oddly
for a few quick seconds
and
then glanced at a doctor for a moment
before returning her attention to me
and said,
"he didn't mention anything
about sleeping in it."
.
"all we know,"
the doctor told me,
"is that his arm
became engaged within the gear works
for some kind of mechanism
while he was in this shed."
.
I knew
the exact billboard.
it featured an ad for a movie
displaying a big life-like dinosaur
bobbing its head and waving its tail
to all the idiots in the street below.
such pure irony I thought,
for a guy like Jerry
who really wanted nothing
to do with Hollywood,
yet he almost gets devoured by it.
.
"is he going to be all right?"
I curiously asked.
.
"well...
his arm is barely stable,"
the nurse said.
.
"can I see him?"
I wondered aloud.
.
"that's the problem,"
the doctor said.
"while in recovery,
he exhibited some unusual behavior.
at first we thought it was a normal reaction
such as from shock or possibly sedation,
general and routine things like that.
but we then suspected worse after a while.
a clearly defined psychosis
seemed evident in his personality.
so we thought best to transfer him
to our mental health facility
for a more in-depth observation."
.
LA's
a tough town I thought.
I have never known anyone
who left it the same way they came.
why should Jerry be any different?
.
"can I get you some coffee?"
the nurse kindly asked me.
but I knew her offer
wasn't an act of compassion.
rather,
it was a ploy of some kind...a stall.
.
something was up.
.
.
~~~~~~~~
.
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(c)2015 Miles Ciletti